Your Cardio Routine is Laughable.

There was once a day in my life when I was not happy and did not have bountiful amounts of energy. This has only happened one time. Normally I not only have enough energy for myself, I have enough to power a medium sized blow dryer for up to 7 hours. On this particular day though, I was sitting at Big Box Gym Inc. (tm), minding my own business, wallowing in despair, much like a middle aged housewife who has just learned that Oprah's book club was now reading the ''Left Behind'' series.

Yea, it was a rough day.

When out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that caught my attention and piqued my interest. I turned around, and too my great delight I was greeted with a sight that caused me to break first into a chuckle, and then into a full on belly laugh causing people to stare, glass to break, and children to cry first, then rapidly mature into responsible young adults.

What I saw was a a person that I had previously offered assistance in helping to lose weight that had turned me down and insisted that they would be able to do it on their own. But that's not why I was laughing. This person was standing on the elliptical machine, where they had spent their last 45 minutes, talking on the phone at a normal rate of speech, and not sweating.

THIS was how they planned to get their summer beach body? THIS was going to get them off their high cholesterol medication? THIS was going to keep them from being obese?

I laughed and laughed, and when I was through, I went to the bathroom and threw up.

Unfortunately most people look at cardio this way. They go to the gym, find the first piece of open equipment, and spend 30 minutes there. No plan, no goal, just 30 minutes of moving their legs.

That being said, there are ways of utilizing machines effectively, but why bother? There are roughly 1 billion other things you could be doing to burn calories and get the body you want, that are simpler and way more productive.

You'll never going to get toned abs, back hips, or thighs walking on a treadmill. The calories burned walking at 3.0 miles per hour for an hour, are so minimal, that you could burn approximately the same amount by quilting for roughly an hour and 15 minutes. Is that appealing to you? Going to the gym so that you can burn as much fat as your grandmother does when she goes to play bingo and mahjong with the girls?

If you're not making an attempt to create new muscle mass to replace your fat, you're not being effective with your time. Get off the recumbent bike and do some push ups and squats. I'll even include a small cardio circuit at the end of this article for you to follow. You're welcome. Bottom line, get off the machine, and do some actual work. If you're not working to the point where you're sweating, you're not working hard enough.  "But Nate!" you say, "I am sweating on the elliptical machine!" Fine. Do what you enjoy, but at least make your time more valuable by doing intervals and hills.

A1) body weight squats
A2) lunges
A3) pushups
A4) Plank

B1) Squat Jumps
B2) Side Lunges
B3) Hands to elbows
B4) Back bridge on hands

Do each for 30 seconds, do both A and B 2 times each, Rest 2 minutes between each set. Should take exactly 14 minutes to finish all of it. If you can do the whole thing, email me, I'll give you a prize.

Sugar is Your Enemy. Destroy It.

First of all, I'm not sorry for not posting at all last week. I was extremely busy finishing my research on the effect of cocaine on the protein receptor sites of small amphibians, taming a wild stallion with my mind, and throwing out the opening pitch at the giant's game....The New York Giants. But I did have a few good ideas about new articles. When I say that, I mean that I had good ideas about things you need to change in your life to be more powerful and better looking.

First of all, you might remember that I have a vendetta against processed food, and specifically sugar, more specifically refined sugar. If you don't remember that, it's Ok. I don't remember your birthday. Sure I see it on facebook, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna write on your wall. I'm not your pawn.
However, there are those of you who at the very mention of sugar or high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the hair on back of your neck will rise, and that's good. But today, I'll do my very best to explain why sugar makes me angry, and the consumption of such should be avoided at all cost.

First of all, the higher sugar or carbohydrate consumption that an individual partakes in, the higher their blood sugar will be. What does this mean? Well, to compensate for your elevated blood sugar levels, your pancreas has to work extra hard to secrete insulin, a hormone that is essentially a key that allows sugar in the blood to access cells and be used as energy. When your blood is saturated with sugar due to a binge or actually just eating 1/2 cup of sugar like my friend Kyle Wade, the insulin cannot keep up with the amount of blood sugar, and it becomes stored as fat, instead of being able to be burned off through activity.

Secondly, research shows that as little as 8 grams of sugar can suppress your immune system for up to 4 hours. Obviously this has a lot to do with activity level, lean body mass, weight, etc. However, the fact remains that sucrose and fructose both are immuno-suppressants. This is terrible for anyone who likes being healthy and feeling good on a daily basis.

Finally, a lot of forward thinking doctors are now classifying HFCS and sucrose as toxins. Not a category 1 toxin like drain-o or chlorine gas, but in the sense that exposure over years and years will result in diseases such as diabetes, cancer, or heart and eye disease. Diabetes is caused in part by having elevated blood sugar levels for long periods of time. Coupling this with a lack of exercise and carrying around extra fat, you're a prime candidate. Diabetes doesn't just require an insulin shot every day either. It necessitates an entire lifestyle change. Changing the times you can eat/exercise, limiting your freedom to do what you want based on your blood sugar is no way to live. Top that off with fear of kidney failure, blindness, and losing fingers and toes, you've got yourself an inconvenient disease.

Enjoy that little tidbit of knowledge next time your want some cotton candy.




Post Script
If you didn't know, I love the alarmist/extremist point of view, and I wont hear any argument that doesn't support my point. If you want unbiased, you've come to the wrong place. That being said, taking in between 25 and 60 grams of sugar per day wont hurt you if you maintain a decent activity level. Just please don't waste that on candy.

30 Minutes of Passion.

Not only is this the title to my racy new adult novella, it has a lot of practical applications in the gym as well.

How long do you work out for? If you answered; "an hour", "two hours", "15 minutes", "not at all", or "ice cream!" you're probably doing it wrong. Even if you do work out for 30-45 minutes, you're still probably doing it wrong. But guess what? Buy my DVD and in addition to receiving an hour long movie of me standing and berating you, you also get the right answer to my question and a free Tai-Bo workout VHS that I bought at a garage sale!

THAT'S AWESOME.

According to the old way of thinking, (read: bad way of thinking) each workout should take about an hour and a half to do all your warm ups, workout, cool down, and chat up the girls on the treadmill. But now, using advanced technology you can cram the same amount of work into around 40 minutes, and that's if you include a shower at the end!
That's a lie, there have not been any scientifically proven ways to hit on the treadmill bunnies more efficiently.

However, you can maximize your time at the gym and do the same amount of work, by following a few simple rules. I love rules.

1)Smart programing.
What this doesn't mean is going to the gym with a "well, maybe I'll do some bicycle today, then maybe some cables, then probably watch that Tai-bo VHS that I have at home..." attitude. That's stupid and not productive. If you or anyone you know is going to the gym without at least a rough plan, you lose.

Also, don't plan your workout poorly. If you don't know how to workout effectively, go see a professional (me), or figure out a workout that comes from a reputable source that you can do without looking like an idiot, injuring yourself, or looking like an idiot while injuring yourself. Very important. For example, a bad workout idea would be starting with curls, working in some overhead press, then ending with leg extensions. Just because you read it that it was Arnold's primary workout in "muscle and fitness" mag, doesn't mean it's good. I don't want to explain why not right now, but I might later. (oooooooh, cliffhanger!)

Another reason smart programming is important, is because you can do a lot more work in a shorter period of time if you program correctly. If you're going to do 5 sets of bench press anyways before moving into your sweet 2-0-4 tempo lat pull downs, you might as well condense them together and do double the work in the same time period. Since they're working opposing muscle groups, performance wont suffer at a muscular level. You'll burn more calories, and everything will think you're ultra smart. And for the guy that's doing the heavy squats and "couldn't possibly do anything else in between", do something low intensity like grip work or pre-hab work for your shoulders, because you're probably going to end up hurting them anyways. Band pull-aparts, wrist rollers, or just squeezing a tennis ball will help you in the long run.

Is that too hard? Then quit jawing with the guy next to you about how you "benched way more than this last week" and stretch your hip flexors.

Supersets and circuits are your new best friend.

2)Higher intensity!
This is where the passion comes in. You probably don't need as much rest as you think you do. Let's say you're doing overhead press with the pink dumbbells. You're supposed to do 3 sets of 10 reps. So you do 10, put them down, grab a drink, do 10, put them down, admire your leggings, do 10 more. Congratulations, you just wasted a bunch of my time, because I want to use those dumbbells and you're hogging them. Besides, everyone knows they look way better with my leopard print toms than your stupid Nike's

Instead of doing the 3x10 that's perscribed, why don't you just try to get to 30 total? Go until you're a rep or two shy of failure, and rest then. For a lot of women with the dumbbells, you'd be surprised at how many you can do. 20 or 30 is not uncommon. If this is the case, up the weight. You deserve it.

3) Better Exercise Selection
This goes hand in hand with smart programming. But pick 'bang for your buck' exercises. trade your calf raises for leg press, and rear deltoid flies for heavy rows. Whether this is on a machine or free weight, it's always going to be better to do exercises that use more than one joint. These are called compound movements and they should be the bread and butter of every workout you embark on. I don't care if you're 19 and athletic or 89 and decrepit. If you are in perfect health, or just had your back amputated. This is always the case.

OK. Ready for a sweet freebie?
Full body workout:

Warm-up with
10 burpees
20 push ups
50 jumping jacks

A1) Lat Pull down x 15
A2) Reverse Lunge (body weight) x 15 each leg
A3) leg swings x25 each leg

B1) Leg Press x 10-15
B2) pushups x 15
B3) Stretch hamstrings 30 sec each side

C1) Dumbbell Swings x 10
C2) Wall sit x 30 seconds
C3 Overhead push press x 8-12

Do each circuit between 1 and 3 times, depending on how awesome you are.

....And just say no to pink dumbells.

Throw Your Chairs Away.

Listen up, everyone knows that I'm full of good advice. In fact, I've even heard that I'm full of the best advice. No holds-barred, raw, relentless wisdom that attacks superstitions and wives tales like a pack of ravenous wolves attack a handicapped moose.
Oh, you believe that you're over-trained and have adrenal fatigue? Wrong. Think that carbs are bad? Wrong again. See? Busting up your paradigms is easy, and fun.

That's right, your brain is probably due for another beat down.

Sitting. You probably like it. Whether you're sitting at home, sitting at work, sitting at lunch, or sitting in bed eating flamin' hot cheetos, chances are that you sit a lot. The average Brit spends 14 hours and 39 minutes per day sitting. This is due to a shift in the average work environment, and also due to the fact that widespread depression has been slowly suffocating England ever since they got their asses kicked in the Revolutionary War (no source available).

Adding to that the fact that people sleep an average of 7 hours and 41 minutes per night, that adds up to a grand total of 22 hours and 20 minutes in a sedentary state. This leaves you with another hour and a half of day to spend using the bathroom, and looking in the freezer for ice cream.

Right now, I have a different agenda, so I won't even bother talking about people's horrible lack of activity. That's a topic for another time, and something that I'll only be able to write about after 2 redbulls.

So, back to the sitting issue. Let's say you sit only 12 hours per day, between work and home. Not including weekends, if you stood for the same amount of time, in 1 month, you would burn 14,400 calories, or about 4 extra pounds. this gives you 3600 extra calories of wiggle room. Time you could not be spending on the ellipticle, or burger splurging at '5 guys' once a week. That's big.

In addition to the calories you're not burning, you're also permanently handicapping yourself because sitting for that long and keeping your hamstrings and glutes in a locked position can cause what's called "gluteal amnesia" which is when you're biggest muscles in your body essentially turn off, and forget how they work. So, not only are you not burning calories, you're reducing your muscle's ability to burn calories in the few minutes you do spend standing or walking during the day.

On top of all that business, when you turn your glutes off, you can force your pelvis to anterior-ly rotate (rotate the top forward, making you look much like a new barbie figurine from the side)

ASIDE: Not only does barbie indoctrinate young girls into thinking that they need to have a impossible figure for men to love them, she's also now trying to make girls think that they need to have bad posture, weak glute medius and piriformis, and a rotated pelvis. This is not OK! I'm going to start selling bracelets to raise awareness...

Since you most likely don't have the waist that barbie has, an pelvis that is rotated forward will make your belly stick out, making you look like you have a bigger midsection than you actually do. Not good.

So, what's a person to do?

Stand up more, take more breaks, walk around your building, go get coffee with Ted from accounting, flirt with that girl from the front desk, etc. Find any and all excuses to be standing as much as you possible can. Men's Health says: Make fitness a lifestyle, not just a part of your day that you do when you're not tired from work.

Get a swiss ball and sit on it, it's not the fix, but it's a step in the right direction. Bottom line is, get up out of your seat. Pick your chair up and carry it downstairs. Pick it up. Toss it in your industrial grade trash compactor. Rejoice

Happy is a State of Mind

...But awesome is a state of being.
Are you awesome? Take this quiz and find out!

1) Does everyone think you're awesome?
a) Totally bro! I'm the dankest amount of chill possible
b) I wore a funny hat to a party once.
c) No, I haven't been awesome since the 80's.

2) What's the most awesome thing you've ever done?
a) I went bungee jumping off a mountain to save a bus full of cheerleaders from a MSG laden avalanche.
b) Nachos!
c) 28-2 on COD black ops.

3) What's the word/phrase you like using the most on a regular basis?
a) "Sneak Attack!"
b) "Where did you leave my chinchilla food?"
c) "Butter"


Score your quiz. If you put any combination of a's b's or c's, congratulations, you're probably not awesome and you're most likely lying to me.
Do something today that is worth talking about. Quit relying on the story you like so much about how you would have thrown the game winning touchdown if only that receiver would have been open, and it would have changed your life because you would have won state and gone straight to the NFL. That's a lame story Uncle Rico, plus, the NFL is having a lockout this year, so good luck.
Do something awesome. Post your story to comments. Or post your favorite picture. That should suffice.

FITNESS CHALLENGE

Find a piece of equipment at your gym/health club/house/garage/backyard. Anything will do. A bike, a rock, the leg press machine, a Costco sized bag of lentils, etc.
Now pick an exercise. The more joints involved in your exercise the better (read: DON'T DO CURLS) Whether it's bike around the block, lift rock overhead, lentil squats, it doesn't matter, just make it good.
Now, perform said exercise
a) as many times as you can
b) as many times as you can in 3 minutes
c) as fast as you can for 100 reps.

Once you're finished, take a 45 second break, then do it again. Get more reps, or do it faster.
It's hard, but not impossible. when your muscles are burning, try this trick. Stop thinking about the muscular stimulation as pain. It's not pain. Avoid saying "it hurts, I hate this, this sucks, I'd rather birth an 18 wheeler" etc. Instead, focus on your burn and try to think about and describe exactly what it feels like. Can't quite get it? Assign a color to your pain, don't think too hard, just whatever comes to mind in the moment. Stay there, thinking about that color, and how it relates to what you're feeling right now.
See if it changes.
Finish your reps.
Become strong and powerful
Like a lion
Made out of small robots
On steroids
In a tank.

Try Harder.

NEWSFLASH. You're probably not romantic anymore. You probably used to be, but you lost 'it'when you got rid of all your old pokemon cards (correlation?) and N'SYNC albums.

Here's how to fix that.
Open your browser.
Open this tab
http://www.rainymood.com/
Now open this one.
http://endlessvideo.com/watch?v=HMnrl0tmd3k
Now open this one
http://endlessvideo.com/watch?v=DIx3aMRDUL4
Now open wine.

Boom, transformation complete. As a famous uncle in a kind of old slightly bad superhero movie said; "With great power comes great responsibility". Only use your new powers for good.

Train with Weights, and Then You Win

I'm gonna let you in on a secret right now, it's not a fitness secret though. It's a secret about one of the easiest ways to drive me out of my mind crazy when it comes to training. This is one that I get a lot of the times from women, and less often, but still an upsetting amount, from men.

The next person that I happen to be training, that turns, and looks me in the eyes, and says sincerely that they don't want to train with weights because they'll bulk up, I'm going to snap. If I do, rest assured, you'll spend the rest of the workout doing a combination of wall taps and horse walks, which are not weight bearing exercises.

I've had women tell me that they can't do anything with weight's because they'll start looking like a football player. The only problem with that statement, is that below, is Baraka Atkins, a football player.

Also pictured below is little Timmy McTimmerson who (apparently) plays for the Cardinals. I have never seen him before on the field though, and can't find him in our roster. Oh well, hard to keep up with all this lockout nonsense going on.




The point is, no matter what a football player looked like in her mind, whether he was a hulking man-beast with biceps that had their own mouths and require a sacrifice of a goat every morning, or if her idea of a football player was 6 years old, and looked like he had a bad attitude, neither makes sense for her to compare herself too. I've seen a lot of body transformations in this business, but it would blow my mind for a full grown woman to morph into a small boy or a black man just by lifting weights. Kidding. I see that kind of stuff all the time.

That being said, it's still important for everyone to be doing loaded exercises. Everyone from the very elderly, to small children. It's a scientific fact that kids, and geriatrics have too much energy. Help them build muscle and stay active by having them move loads of bricks around your yard. Don't need anything built you say? No problem, have the kids stack the bricks in different orders or build neat things with them. Boom, exercising the body and the mind. That's what we do here.

Weight bearing movements are great for a lot of reasons. Staving off obesity, keeping you healthy (see every other article I've written), crafting your body into a glorious marble-esque tribute to the glute complex....etc. Also, it helps keep osteoperosis at bay. If you're a woman, you're already 48% more likely to develop symptoms for osteopenia or osteoperosis at some point in your life. (Caused by the breakdown of calcium in your bones, it causes bones to become weak and brittle, which can cause stress fractures, and even broken bones.) Hey women, still with me? Guess what else increases your chances of getting it? Getting older, lack of muscle mass, being white, poor diet, no exercise.

While there are some things on that list that you cannot control, the rest are up to you.

Let me address the main concern that a lot of women voice, that lifting weights will cause them to gain muscle.
This is true. You were right all along. However, (and this is the big however) simply lifting weights will not give you a bodybuilder physique. Especially a lady bodybuilder's physique. There is simply too much else that goes into a body like this:




Including a meticulous diet, hours upon hours in the gym, and drugs.
You'll gain muscle alright, but it will be the kind of muscle you want, that gives you nice curves, great arms and legs, and makes all your friends stare at your butt.... If they're good friends they will...

Also, just a quick note, what do you think burns more calories, curls with your body weight, or squats with your body weight and an extra dumbbell?

Trick question. The answer is squats.

Walkathon

So this is the part of the blog where I turn around and ask readers for money for a charity. You need to pledge to donate $250.00 for every mile I walk in 2011. Just do it, it's for a good cause. Trust me. I haven't lied to you yet.

Obviously I'm only kidding. $250 is weak. You know what's not weak though? Walking isn't. Maybe one of the most underrated types of exercise of all time, walking has been around for hundreds of years. The first evidence of human-mammalsapians donning a pair of legs and walking around is documented in a cave in Egypt that has since been destroyed by the fires of revolution. As you can see from the picture on the left, early humans had a large beak and spent most of their time swimming, which explains why the blue whale is now extinct. As humans experimented more and more with their new found foot power, various advances were made in science, including the wheel, the Hubble telescope, and hunting. All of these things increased the desire and scope of ability for the early humans, leaving them wanting more and more out of their legs. But as time went on, society developed, Starbucks began to slowly hypnotize the youth, and we slowly began to exchange our strong virulent legs for crude imitations, which appear to be crafted out of homemade play-doh.

All that history, to say that walking is an important part of human movement and mobility, and by not walking, taking the closest space at the mall, using the elevator, spending time on World of Warcraft in the evening, we forsake an easy way of staying healthy. Men and women both get a decreased risk for heart disease, depression, breast and colon cancer, osteoporosis, and the big D, diabetes. If you already suffer from one, or a few of these maladies, walking for just 3 hours per week can help reduce symptoms.

Walking at 3.5 miles per hour (a nice quick pace) can burn around 350 calories depending on weight. Just adding in 3 days per week of walking can cause you to burn an extra pound of fat per month. Either that, or it gives you the freedom to eat one linebacker sized meal at taco bell. But to each their own.

One of the most common methods of cardio done by bodybuilders and those wishing to lean down without losing a lot of muscle mass is walking for an extended period of time. Maybe you don't want to be a bodybuilder skippy, but those guys know their stuff when it comes to body composition manipulation.

In addition, walking will help with posture, and core strength as well, because you're doing what your body was meant to do in standing up straight and moving around. It's not a novel idea, but it's one that a lot of people forget about in their day to day business, taking the kids to soccer, doctor's appointments, pretending you have a black belt in the mirror...the list goes on and on.

So take it day by day, park farther away from the store when you're shopping, and carry your bags when you leave. Walk up the stairs at work, detox from the day with a walk around the block with your significant other. (bonus: improves communication and relieves relationship tension)

In conclusion, walking is good. Do it. Don't overdo it and spend all your time at the gym walking on a treadmill, it's just part of the equation, just an extra you can do in order to keep leaning out, losing fat and staying healthy.